'Pleading for Permanence' - The Plight of the Armenian Christians

Fr Benedict Kiely, founder of Nasarean.org, a charity helping persecuted Christians, makes a powerful appeal for Christian Armenia, at risk of being wiped off the map by the Islamic nation of Azerbaijan, which is waging a brazen cultural genocide to complete the physical Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1917.  

Pleading for Permanence

The Turkic Azerbaijanis seek to eradicate all signs of the ancient Christian history of Armenia

Fr Benedict Kiely,  The European Conservative, Sept 8, 2024

When the forces of the Islamic State (ISIS) swept through Syria and Iraq, beginning in 2014, they immediately began destroying both churches and the Christian symbols within them. Visiting both Syria and Iraq many times, I have seen every Cross in a church defaced, statues broken, and icons scratched and damaged. There was a reason, for example, that ISIS used churches in Mosul as torture centres, prisons, and often places for target practice. It was not only to blaspheme and insult their true purpose, to gloat over the defeated Christian populace, but also to deny the building ever had a sacred use. There was far worse to see. In many places, ISIS destroyed Christian graveyards, something I saw with my own eyes. They not only destroyed the graveyards; they dug up the bodies of the Christian ancestors and threw them away. If there are no graveyards, it means the people were never there. The policy was not merely cultural vandalism; it was deliberate and planned.

Scruton wrote that “sacred spaces are steeped in the hope and sufferings of those who have fought for them. And they belong to others who are yet to be.” To eradicate hallowed ground not only denies the reality of an historical presence but also attempts to ensure that those who are “yet to be” will never return.

This policy is happening in another part of the world at this very moment. This time, not the work of a revolutionary force, but the work of a nation feted across the globe, especially because it has seemingly unlimited amounts of oil and gas. The oldest Christian nation on earth, Armenia, is suffering an historical and cultural genocide to accompany not only the physical genocide of 1915 to 1917 but the forced expulsion of all the Armenian citizens from the territory of Artsakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh, in 2023. In every area that the Islamic nation of Azerbaijan takes from Armenia, churches, monasteries, and religious signs and symbols have been destroyed. Graveyards are desecrated. The famous Armenian khachkar’s, the decorated stone Cross so typical of Armenian culture, some from at least the 9th century, have been broken, moved, or vandalised. Following the example of their Turkish overlords, who accompanied the Armenian genocide of the last century with a similar policy of the destruction of memory and presence, the Turkic Azerbaijanis are seeking to eradicate all signs of the ancient Christian history of Armenia, present since the 4th century. It is, in fact, the prevailing policy and the absurd fantasy of the government of Azerbaijan that the very state of Armenia has never existed, which is precisely why all historical signs must be eliminated. Meanwhile, the world watches and fills the oil tanks and pays the petrodollars...

Across the West, there is a destruction of memory, a denial of the past, exemplified by the refusal to acknowledge the foundational role of Christianity in the European Constitution; there is a reason why the European Commission is probably the most secular institution in Europe. Although churches, as they rapidly empty, are not being bulldozed, or at least not many, they are being used for other purposes, increasingly as mosques in Britain.

For those of us who care, this increased denial of people and place, their history and culture, as a weapon of war, must be fought vigorously. The defence of Christian Armenia is an imperative for all who claim the name of Christian. As in the Middle East, they belong where they have always been, where they deserve to be. As Roger Scruton noted, “By bearing the imprint of former generations, a corner of the earth pleads for permanence.”

Read the full article here.

Support Fr Benedict Kiely and Nazarean.org here...

New Priest-Martyr Nikolai Kotelnikov of Derbent, Dagestan

New Martyr Father Nikolai Kotelnikov of Derbent. A Muslim extremist slit his throat in church. He and his church guard were both murdered. Holy Martyr Fr Nikolai, pray to God for us!

PRIEST KILLED IN TERRORIST ATTACKS ON CHURCHES IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA

Derbent, Republic of Dagestan, Russia, June 24, 2024, OrthoChristian.com

A priest who has been serving the Church since Soviet times received a martyric end in a terrorist attack against churches in Russia’s southern Dagestan Republic yesterday. 

Militants attacked two churches, a synagogue, and a traffic police post in the Dagestani cities of Derbent and Makhachkala, reports RIA-Novosti. 

Early on Sunday, a group of armed men opened fire on a church and synagogue in Derbent, while others attacked another church in Makhachkala. According to preliminary data, one priest, Archpriest Nikolai Kotelnikov, 66, a church guard, and six police officers were killed. Another 12 officers were injured. 

According to the Dagestan branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, six militants were killed. 

Fr. Nikolai served as a priest for 40 years, beginning in Soviet times. They slit Fr. Nikolai’s throat at Holy Protection Church in Derbent, then set it on fire. 

Fr. Nikolai is survived by his wife, three children, and grandchildren. 

The terrorists also killed the guard at the Holy Dormition Cathedral in Makhachkala. The guard, named Mikhail, sacrificed his own life, attempting to stop the terrorists. Though he died, he gave the worshipers enough time to barricade themselves safely inside. 

A terrorist attack also took place in Dagestan on Forgiveness Sunday in 2018, in which five women were killed.

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel - Why did a Muslim attack and try to kill him?

You have probably seen the news reports of the shocking knife attack against Assyrian Christian Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney, Australia on Monday, April 15.  Thanks be to God, His Eminence survived with non-life-threatening injuries, and is doing well.

Bishop Mar Mari — a powerful preacher and now a confessor for Christ — has openly forgiven his attacker, and another report states, “It is the Bishop’s and Father’s wishes that you also pray for the perpetrator."

Here are a few additional links to get up to speed:

• Australia: Muslim stabs priest during mass, “He kept saying ‘Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar'”
• The miracle that saved Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel's life and kept his alleged attacker from killing him: 'Act of God'
• Australia: Muslim teen who attacked priest while screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ was recent convert to Islam

But why would a Muslim attack and try to kill Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel? Perhaps because he powerfully preaches against the false religion of Islam and the false prophet Muhammad, and invites Muslims to convert to Jesus Christ. The fearless David Wood goes point by point for us in this analysis:

Here is a talk by Bishop Mar Mari in which he explains his interpretation of a passage of Revelation, and how Islam is prophetically revealed to be a false religion:

So, it is easy to see why Muslims would be angered by Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, but why would they want to kill him?

Perhaps because it is commanded in the Koran:

Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [i.e. Islam] among the people of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (9:29)

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes. (8:12)

Perhaps also because that's what Muhammad would do, as related in this foundational Islamic hadith:

Allah’s Messenger said: “I have been ordered [by Allah] to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah...” (Sahih Bukhari, 1:2:25, also Sahih Muslim, 1:10:29-35)

Such is zeal according to the false religion of Islam.

Raymond Ibrahim: "The genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level"

Several genocide watchdog organizations are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Read the below article on the horrific and multilayered background story of this genocide, and contact your congressman and senator to express support for the Armenians.

Starvation: ‘The Invisible Genocide Weapon’

by Raymond Ibrahim, originally published at the Gatestone Institute

The thousand-year-old genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level.

Several watchdog organizations—including the Association of Genocide Scholars,  Genocide Watch, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention—are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.  Historically known as Artsakh, this ancient Armenian region was annexed by and brought under Azerbaijani rule in 2020.

Modern day hostilities between Armenia, an ancient nation and the first to adopt Christianity, and Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that was created in 1918, began in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a war to claim Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).  Although it had been Armenian for over two thousand years, and still remains 90% Armenian, after the dissolution of the USSR, the “border makers” granted it to Azerbaijan, hence the constant warring over this region. (See “15 Artsakh War Myths Perpetuated By Mainstream Media.”)

Once the September 2020 war began, Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists against Armenia, though the dispute clearly did not concern it.  It dispatched  sharia-enforcing “jihadist groups” from Syria and Libya—including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division, which once kept naked women chained and imprisoned—to terrorize and slaughter the Armenians.

One of these captured mercenaries later confessed that he was “promised a monthly $2,000 payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar[s] for each beheaded kafir.” (Kafir, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for any non-Muslim who fails to submit to Islam, which makes them de facto enemies.)

All these Muslim groups committed massive atrocities (see here and here), including by raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and mockingly sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.

The war ended in November 2020, with Azerbaijan claiming a significant portion of Artsakh.

Then, on December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan sealed off the humanitarian Lachin Corridor—the only route between Artsakh and the outside world.  A recent report by Dutch journalist, Sonja Dahlmans, summarizes the situation since:

Islam and Western Civilization: Pillar or Pillager?

From noted Roman Catholic author and Tolkien scholar, Joseph Pearce, comes a sharp rebuttal of the fallacious belief that Islam is somehow compatible with, and even central to, Western Civilization. Excerpt:

The seven pillars of Western Civilization are the edifying edifices which tower over the landscape of the centuries as a fortress of faith and a beacon of reason. Islam has served throughout the centuries as an outside force which has repeatedly laid siege to the fortress, seeking its overthrow.

Islam and Western Civilization

By Joseph Pearce| The Imaginative Conservative |January 28th, 2023


Several weeks ago I wrote an essay for this illustrious journal entitled “The Seven Pillars of Western Civilization” in which I listed the seven seminal tomes which form the textual foundation of the civilization of the West. These are The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Bible, The City of God, the Summa Theologica and The Divine Comedy. Collectively, these texts epitomize why Western Civilization is founded on the three civilizations of Athens, Jerusalem and Rome.

This is not the place to offer explanations with respect to the rationale for why these seven texts were selected instead of other contenders. Those interested in understanding the reason for the selection are invited to read the original essay.

What surprised me was that several readers of the original essay admonished me for failing to include the Qur’an as one of the seven pillars of wisdom on which Western Civilization is built. This seems to beg the obvious question which I thought my essay had answered implicitly. What exactly is Western Civilization? If it is anything at all, it must be something rooted in a cohesive and coherent set of common values, which are themselves the fruit of cohesive and coherent theological and philosophical principles.

In brief and in sum, Western Civilization in its fullness and fruitfulness is a synonym for Christendom. [Emphasis added -ed.] It is the consummation of the mythological and philosophical musings of the Greeks and the fulfilment of the theological covenant of the Jews in the Person of Jesus Christ as made manifest in the Church He founded throughout the centuries since His Incarnation. The quest and questions of Athens and Jerusalem are fulfilled and answered in the Gospel as enunciated by the One who proclaims Himself to be the Way, the Truth and the Life. Christ incarnates the transcendental trinity of the Good, the True and the Beautiful in who He is.

If this is so, the Qur’an is not one of the foundational pillars of wisdom on which the West is built but is a subversive text which undermines those very foundations. If Christ is who He says He is, Muhammed is a false prophet. This is as logically inescapable as it is theologically obvious.

Raymond Ibrahim: 'The Never Ending ‘Pandemic’: 360 Million Christians Persecuted Worldwide'

 "Perhaps the most disturbing trend is that, since the inception of the World Watch List, the persecution of Christians has nearly doubled..."

The Never Ending ‘Pandemic’: 360 Million Christians Persecuted Worldwide

by Raymond Ibrahim, 2/8/2023

originally published at Gatestone Institute

In 2022, 5,621 Christian around the world were “killed for faith related reasons.”  Another 4,542 Christians were illegally detained or arrested, and 2,110 churches were attacked, many destroyed.  Over all, the global persecution of Christians remains higher than ever, with 360 million believers suffering high levels of discrimination and violence.

These are among some of the findings of the World Watch List-2023, which was recently published by the international humanitarian organization, Open Doors. Each year the report ranks the top 50 nations where Christians are most persecuted for their faith by using data from approximately 4,000 field workers and external experts to quantify and analyze persecution worldwide.

Crunching some numbers, the report finds that, on average, one in seven Christians (14%) are persecuted around the world. In Africa, that number grows to one in five (20%), while in Asia it is as much as two in five—meaning a whopping 40% of all Christians are persecuted there.

Christians suffer “extreme levels of persecution” in the top 11 of the 50 nations.  This ranges from being assaulted, raped, imprisoned or slaughtered on being identified as a Christian or attending (usually underground) churches.

Those nations and their respective rankings are: 1)      North Korea, 2) Somalia, 3) Yemen, 4) Eritrea, 5) Libya, 6) Nigeria, 7) Pakistan, 8) Iran, 9) Afghanistan, 10) Sudan, 11) India.

Coming in at #1, the absolute worst nation is North Korea, “with the highest levels of persecution ever seen,” says the report:

If discovered by the authorities, believers are either sent to labour camps as political prisoners where the conditions are atrocious, or killed on the spot—and their families will share their fate as well. Christians have absolutely no freedom….  A new ‘anti-reactionary thought law’ makes it amply clear that being a Christian or possessing a Bible is a serious crime and will be severely punished.

Most of the “extreme persecution” meted out to Christians in nine of the top 11 worst nations continues, however, to come either from Islamic oppression, or takes place in Muslim-majority nations. This means that approximately 80% of the absolute worst persecution around the globe takes place in the name of Islam.

Raymond Ibrahim: 'Pope Benedict Told the Grim Truth about Islam'

"As if to validate the claim that Muhammad had only taught “evil and inhuman” things, when Benedict quoted this assertion, anti-Christian riots erupted around the Muslim world, churches were set aflame, and an Italian nun who had devoted her life to serving the sick and needy of Somalia was murdered there."

Pope Benedict Told the Grim Truth about Islam

01/16/2023 by Raymond Ibrahim

Originally published by The Stream

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

In certain respects, this is the sentence that Pope Benedict XVI will be most remembered for. And while those who cite it do so to disparage and dishonor his memory—to portray him as an “Islamophobe”—that notorious assertion is of profound significance, and in more ways than one.

Pope Benedict read the above assertion on Sept. 12, 2006, during his Regensburg address on faith and reason. He was quoting Eastern Roman (or “Byzantine”) Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (b. 1350-1425). An erudite and pious man, Manuel knew much about Islam, both abstractly and experientially.

In 1390, Manuel’s father, John V, submitted to becoming a vassal to, and sent his son, Manuel, as a hostage of, the Ottoman sultan, Bayezid I (1360-1403), whom the contemporary chronicler Doukas described as

"a feared man, precipitate in deeds of war, a persecutor of Christians as no other around him, and in the religion of the Arabs [Islam] a most ardent disciple of Muhammad, whose unlawful commandments were observed to the utmost, never sleeping, spending his nights contriving intrigues and machinations against the rational flock of Christ. . . . His purpose was to increase the nation of the Prophet and to decrease that of the Romans. Many cities and provinces did he add to the dominion of the Muslims."

Unsurprisingly, the sultan never seemed to miss an opportunity to humiliate the heir apparent of Constantinople. Bayezid even sadistically forced Manuel to accompany the Turks and witness the final destruction of Philadelphia, the last Christian bastion in Asia Minor. The “sight of destroyed Christian cities” produced much “intense suffering” and even “sickened” the prince, writes one historian.

One year later, in 1391, Emperor John V died, and his son, Manuel, became emperor—after escaping from the sultan’s court to Constantinople. It was not long before Bayezid declared a fresh jihad, put Constantinople to siege (1394-1402), and once again began slaughtering Christians.

Earlier, during his time with the Turks, Manuel had regularly debated religion with Muslims. It was then that he said to a learned Muslim, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Fr. Alexey Young - On the New Martyrs under the Turkish Muslim Yoke

On the third Sunday after Pentecost, the Church honors the memory of the Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke. The following article is condensed from a lecture delivered at the St. Herman Summer Pilgrimage, Platina CA, August, 1982, and first printed in Orthodox America.

'Where are the Mighty of the Earth?' - Sunday of the New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke

by Fr Alexey Young

OrthoChristian.com

On May 29, 1453, the troops of the Moslem leader, Mohammed II took the great city of Constantinople. For more than 1000 years Orthodox Christians had assumed that the Byzantine Christian Empire would stand until the Second Coming of Christ. They had always called their city the “God-protected City,” and indeed, until now it had been protected by Heaven. But when their Emperor, Constantine XI, fell in battle, the holy city of Byzantium became the capital of a new empire, the Ottoman Empire, ruled by a pagan people, enemies of Christ and Christianity, the Moslems. It was a dark, dark time for Orthodox Christians in that part of the world.

In their violent hatred of Christianity, the Moslem Turks embarked on a course of persecution designed to effectively muzzle the flock of Christ. Their strategy was no less cruel than that of atheist communists in the Soviet Union; the parallels are striking. Most of the churches of Constantinople (whose name was changed to Istanbul, just as years later Petersburg was changed to Leningrad) were converted to mosques. Their movable icons were destroyed and whole walls of inspiring and radiantly beautiful mosaics were covered with paint or plaster. Crosses were torn off domes and broken off the roofs of churches. The Moslems guaranteed Christians a definite place in Turkish society; but it was a place of guaranteed inferiority. Orthodox Christians were required to pay an annual head tax, like cattle. To the Turks they were unbelievers, and they had absolutely no rights of citizenship. They even had to wear distinctive dress. They could not marry Moslems, nor could they engage in missionary work of any kind; in fact, it was a crime, usually punishable by death, to convert a Moslem to the Christian Faith.

As if these measures were not enough, the Moslems actively undertook to control the Church itself. The Sultan ironically considered himself the “protector” of Orthodoxy, supposedly guaranteeing the existence of the Church, but actually keeping it in the vise of a terrible stranglehold. Under this system each Patriarch had to pay a stiff fee to the Sultan before he could be enthroned. Unable to raise the funds himself, the Patriarch was forced to exact a fee from each new bishop before installing him in his diocese, and this burden was eventually placed on the flocks. Taking advantage of this financially lucrative situation, the Turks forced re-elections of the Patriarch with undue rapidity. The majority of the Sultans themselves were sick, demon-ridden men, whose irrational rule and unbridled power only heightened the already demoralizing effect of Turkish rule on the Church. It is not without reason that an Englishman living in Istanbul in the seventeenth century wrote these words: “Every good Christian ought with sadness to consider and with compassion to behold this once glorious Church tearing and rending out her bowels and giving them as food to vultures and ravens."

The aim of Orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire became, simply, one of survival. Little could they know, in 1453, that the heavy sword of Islam would weigh upon them not for a generation or two, but for five hundred years, five long centuries of darkness and difficulty. But even under such ruinous circumstances, God did not allow the light of Christianity to be extinguished. It was kept alive through the courageous confession of the New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke.

Raymond Ibrahim: 'The Black Lives that Don’t Matter: 50 Christians Murdered in Their Church'

Muslims persecute Christians globally and commit genocide in Nigeria, but the West, including western Christians, are silent.


The Black Lives that Don’t Matter: 50 Christians Murdered in Their Church

by Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute, June 12, 2022





Last Sunday, June 5, 2022, Islamic terrorists stormed the St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo, Nigeria, and massacred more than 50 Christians who were otherwise peacefully worshipping their God. Videos, according to one report, “showed church worshippers lying in pools of blood while people around them wailed.”

As terrible as this massacre might seem, it is just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg”: over the years, Muslims have assaulted, shot up, or torched countless churches in Nigeria. Below are just three other examples:

• Easter Sunday, Apr. 20, 2014: Islamic terrorists torched a packed church; 150 Christians were killed and countless injured.

• Easter Sunday, Apr. 8, 2012: explosives planted by Muslims detonated near two packed churches; more than 50 Christians were killed and unknown numbers injured.

• Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2011: Muslim terrorists shot up and bombed three churches; 37 Christians were killed, 57 injured.

The Christians of Nigeria are, in fact, being purged in a genocide, according to several NGOs (here and here, for instance). One Christian is killed every two hours in Nigeria. According to an August 2021 report, since the Islamic insurgency began in earnest in July 2009— first at the hands of the Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram, and later by Fulani, Muslim herdsmen, also motivated by jihadist ideology to seize Christian (“infidel”) land—more than 60,000 Christians have either been murdered during raids, or abducted, never to be seen again. During this same timeframe, approximately 20,000 churches and Christian schools were torched and destroyed by “Allahu Akbar” screaming Muslims.

Remembering New-Martyr Fr. Ragheed Ganni of Iraq

Here is a much needed reflection on one of the new 21st century Christian martyrs under the sword of Islam. Providing such contextual insight as the below paragraph, this article is very helpful in understanding how America's Middle East policy sometimes bears direct responsibility for Muslim persecution of Christians:

 

Father Ragheed knew very well what most Americans, even policymakers, did not: that Christians in the Muslim-majority Middle East are often seen as sympathetic to the West, and therefore untrustworthy; in a war, they might be regarded as fellow travelers or spies. The American invasion immediately imperiled Iraq’s Christians, who numbered over a million people in 2003. In the years that followed, many Iraqi Christians and other minorities sought asylum in the United States, the country whose invasion had given rise to their persecution. The Bush administration, however, denied Christian claims of persecution as unfounded. Many were turned away as a result. Thus it is to incur at once the enmity of one’s neighbors and the indifference of one’s liberators.

For more on this heroic confessor and witness for Christ, see my previous post here.

A Martyr In Iraq

Remembering Father Ragheed Ganni, who was murdered 15 years ago today in Iraq.

by Andrew Doran, The American Conservative

June 3, 2022

“A martyr, a saint, is always made by the design of God, for His love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. A martyrdom is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in submission to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom.” – T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

On an evening in March 2003, a dinner of Catholic priests, seminarians, and graduate theology students at the Irish College in Rome was interrupted with the announcement that the U.S. ground invasion of Iraq had begun. The few non-Irish present included Shena, an American woman, and Father Ragheed Ganni, a Chaldean priest from Mosul, ancient Nineveh. Both were students at the Angelicum, a Dominican institute founded in the thirteenth century. All eyes turned to the stunned Fr. Ragheed, who said simply, “I have to return home.”

“It was my country at war with his,” says Shena, “which was awful.” Now a mother of six in America, she recalls Father Ragheed as “a lovely, peaceful man.” He would explain with care and patience the complexity of the region to outsiders, especially Americans. “It would have been easy, and perhaps good politics, for him to have remained silent about the Iraq War,” she says nearly two decades later. She recalls how he gently defended the traditional culture of the Muslim-majority Middle East, of which Westerners were frequently critical. It wasn’t his way to debate with brusqueness but to simply hold the ground he had staked out on behalf of his beliefs.

It would also have been easy for him to remain in Rome or to join the exodus of his people from Iraq. Instead, Father Ragheed chose to return to his home, Mosul, which would soon become one of the most perilous places in the world to be a Christian.

New Martyr Evgeny of Chechnya (+1996) commemorated on May 23

Hieromonk Joshua shared the following on his Facebook feed today, reminding us of this valiant Confessor of Christ, who refused to remove his Cross which he wore, and refused to deny Christ, preferring to die as a Witness (Martyr) for Jesus Christ, and thus inherit eternal life and a crown of glory.

For more on New Martyr Evgeny, see my earlier post here.

New Martyr Rasha Muklasha, killed by her son for converting to Christ

"Children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." (MT 10:21b-22)

"The hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me." (JN 16:2b-3)

MARTYRDOM IN THE HOLY LAND: SON KILLS MOTHER FOR CONVERTING FROM ISLAM TO ORTHODOXY

OrthoChristian.com, September 28, 2021

A woman from Northern Israel was strangled to death by her own son last month for converting from Islam to Orthodox Christianity.

According to the indictment, the murder of 46-year-old Rasha Muklasha by her 27-year-old son Muad Hib was premeditated, with Hib arranging a meeting with her near Nazareth on August 5 with the intention of killing her and disposing of her remains, reports the Times of Israel.

Muklasha left her husband and severed ties with her five children in 2006, later converting to Orthodoxy. Having learned of the death of her ex-husband, she resumed contact with her children, but they were angered by her conversion.

Three sons and another relative were all arrested, and eventually enough evidence was gathered to pinpoint the middle brother as the main culprit, with the others being released, reports the Jerusalem Post.

After picking up his mother in his car, Hib “strangled the deceased with a rope or his hands, alone or with others, with the intention of causing her death,” the court documents said.

He then fled towards the Jordan River where he dug a pit and buried his mother’s body. Later that day, he rammed a police roadblock and was arrested after a brief chase.

The martyred Muklasha’s remains were found about a day later near a section of the Jordan River in northern Israel.

VIDEO: David Wood on Global Persecution of Christians (Banned by YouTube as Hate Speech)

David Wood of Acts17 Apologetics had posted a video discussing the facts and statistics of Open Doors' 2020 World Watch List, their annual report on the persecution of Christians around the globe. 

YouTube took down his video, and gave him a strike for hate speech. Two more strikes within a 90 day period, and his channel will be permanently taken down.

You can watch David's response here. Below is the video which YouTube classified as "hate speech," hosted now on David Wood's BitChute channel.

His plan is to release a series of videos on Global Persecution of Christians in the coming days.

As followers of this blog know, approximately 80% of all persecution of Christians is committed by Muslims.

(VIDEO) Proto-Martyr Evgeny Rodionov (May 23)

On May 23 the Orthodox Church commemorates the New Martyr Evgeny Rodionov, who in 1996 was brutally tortured and murdered by Chechen Muslims for refusing to remove his cross.

Evgeny is one of the ProtoMartyrs under the sword of the false religion of Islam for the New Cloud of Witnesses of the 21st Century. His refusal to deny Christ is both a sign and an inspiration to us today.

Evgeny's martyrdom at the end of the 20th century was a sign of the newly emboldened ascendency of the foul religion of Muhammad, which has led to new waves of persecution of Christians throughout the world, and an ever growing choir of New Martyrs for Christ, slain by Muslims across Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, America, and elsewhere.

Watch the video below, and learn more about Holy New Martyr Evgeny on our special resource page dedicated to him.

World Watch List 2020: '260 Million Christians Experience High Levels of Persecution'

"...Not only does 'Islamic oppression' remain the chief 'source of persecution' faced by Christians in 7 of the absolute ten worst nations, but 38 of the 50 nations composing the list are either Muslim majority or have a sizable Muslim population."

A Global Catastrophe: '260 Million Christians Experience High Levels of Persecution'
by Raymond Ibrahim, February 3, 2020

The global persecution of Christians has reached unprecedented levels: “260 million Christians experience high levels of persecution” around the world, notes the recently published World Watch List 2020, an annual report that ranks the top 50 countries where Christians are most persecuted for their faith.

Additionally, “2,983 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons. On average, that’s 8 Christians killed every day for their faith”: “9,488 churches or Christian buildings were attacked,” and “3,711 Christians were detained without trial, arrested, sentenced and imprisoned.” (Note: All quotes in this article are from the WWL 2020 report.)

Dictatorial paranoia continues to make North Korea (#1) the worst nation. Christians found there are instantly “deported to labor camps as political criminals or even killed on the spot.”

Otherwise, and as has been the case in all statistics and reports on the global persecution of Christians, not only does “Islamic oppression” remain the chief “source of persecution” faced by Christians in 7 of the absolute ten worst nations, but 38 of the 50 nations composing the list are either Muslim majority or have a sizeable Muslim population.

"Perhaps the most disturbing trend is that the amount of persecuted Christians continues to grow year after year."

The overwhelming majority of these Muslim nations are governed by some form of shari‘a (Islamic law). It is either directly enforced by government or society or, more frequently, both, though societies—family members in particular—tend to be more zealous in its application. Brief summaries of the seven Muslim nations making the top ten follow:

The Hundred Thousand Holy Martyrs of Tbilisi (+1227)

"The invaders goaded the people to the bridge, ordering them to cross it and spit on the holy icons. Those who betrayed the Christian Faith and mocked the icons were spared their lives, while the Orthodox confessors were beheaded."

_______

This is one of the most compelling mass-martyrdom accounts in Christian history. Of course, the "Turkmen" referred to are the Muslim Turks, who during the thirteenth century were waging jihad to expand the dar al-Islam.

Notice the practice of beheading by the Muslims, used by the Islamic State today, following the example of Muhammad, who personally beheaded between 600 and 900 Jewish men and boys from the Quraiza tribe at Medina. (See The Life of Muhammad, by Ibn Ishaq, trans. A. Guillaume, New York, 1980, pp 463-464).

The Hundred Thousand Holy Martyrs of Tbilisi are commemorated by the Orthodox Church on October 31 (which is today, on the 'Old Calendar').

See also:

OCA - Lives of the Saints - 100,000 Martyrs of Tbilisi by the Mongols

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The Hundred Thousand Holy Martyrs of Tbilisi  (+1227)

from Lives of the Georgian Saints, by Archpriest Zakaria Machitadze

St Herman of Alaska Press, Platina CA, 2006, pp 403-404.

From the book, 'Lives of the Georgian Saints'

In 1227 Sultan Jalal al-Din of Khwarazm and his army of Turkmen attacked Georgia. On the first day of the battle the Georgian army valorously warded off the invaders as they were approaching Tbilisi. That night, however, a group of Persians who were living in Tbilisi secretly opened the gates and summoned the enemy army into the city.

According to one manuscript in which this most terrible day in Georgian history was described: "Words are powerless to convey the destruction that the enemy wrought: tearing infants from their mothers' breasts, they beat their heads against the bridge, watching as their eyes dropped from their skulls...."

A river of blood flowed through the city. The Turkmen castrated young children, raped women, and stabbed mothers to death over their children's lifeless bodies. The whole city shuddered at the sound of wailing and lamentation. The river and streets of the city were filled with death.

The sultan ordered that the cupola of Sioni Cathedral be taken down and replaced by his vile throne. And at his command the icons of the Theotokos and our Savior were carried out of Sioni Cathedral and placed at the center of the bridge across the Mtkvari River. The invaders goaded the people to the bridge, ordering them to cross it and spit on the holy icons. Those who betrayed the Christian Faith and mocked the icons were spared their lives, while the Orthodox confessors were beheaded.

Order the book from St Herman Press!

One hundred thousand Georgians sacrificed their lives to venerate the holy icons. One hundred thousand severed heads and headless bodies were carried by the bloody current down the Mtkvari River.

0 ye thousands of stars, the chosen people guarding the Georgian Church with your golden wings, intercede for us always before the face of God!

Sword and Scimitar: 'Compelling Reminder of the Terrifying Dynamic which Continues to Drive the Islamic World'

An in-depth, "must read" review of Raymond Ibrahim's most recent masterwork.

Sword and Scimitar: “A Compelling Reminder of the Terrifying Dynamic which Continues to Drive the Islamic World”

10/02/2019 by Raymond Ibrahim

Note: The following book review of Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West was written by Terry Scambray and first appeared in the Sept. 2019 issue of the New Oxford Review:

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We judge individuals by what they say and what they do. We judge cults, religions and ideologies the same way; that is, by their doctrines and history.

Which is common sense, of course.

Apparently though, common sense is abandoned when it comes to ideologies like Marxism which has largely escaped such scrutiny by our schools and popular culture; and now the same cover up is happening with Islam.

But Raymond Ibrahim, fluent in Arabic, is an equal opportunity Middle East scholar committed to truth rather than conforming to dangerous fads.

Ibrahim gained attention with his revealing translations in his 2007 book, The Al Qaeda Reader, which showed the difference between what Osama bin Laden said in Arabic to Muslims and what he said for receptive, if not gullible, Western audiences.

Ibrahim’s second book, Crucified Again, showed the murder and destruction that Christians are enduring at the hands of Muslims throughout the world.

In Sword and Scimitar, Ibrahim begins by explaining Mohammed’s doctrine of jihad or “holy war”: “Whereas the rewards of the pre-Islamic tribal raid were limited to temporal spoils and came with the risk of death, the deified raid (jihad) offered rewards in the here and the hereafter – meaning it was essentially risk free – and thus led to a newborn fanaticism and determination.” In other words, robbery, murder and enslavement were sacralized and then transformed into a prodigious engine of Islamic conquest.

Conquest being the major feature of Islam’s 1,400 year history, Sword and Scimitar takes the reader on a tour – “a tour of force” – as represented by eight significant battles and an array of lesser clashes.

Skillfully relying on first person descriptions, Ibrahim’s narration of these battles is gripping and suspenseful while also evoking the pain and terror of warfare. Especially after the current revival of jihad, his recounting of these barbaric episodes and their consequences is not comforting.

Video: Raymond Ibrahim - 'The Past and Present Persecution of Christians'

A brisk and essential presentation by my dear friend, the great Raymond Ibrahim, on the historical continuity of Islam's persecution of Christians, from the time of Muhammad to today.

Watch and share widely:

Father Seraphim Rose on Islam - Revisiting a Key Post on this Blog

This early article, posted just eighteen months after the launch of the Facing Islam Blog in April 2011, holds up as a critically important document, reminding us of what one of the Orthodox Church's most significant figures and writers had to say about the false religion of Islam, and what more he might have said had his life not ended at so young an age (48) in 1982.

I had linked to this article in my recent posting of a new Russian documentary on the Life and Teachings of Father Seraphim, but this article stirred me so deeply as I re-read it, that I decided to re-post it as a reminder and encouragement to us all.

I have added a couple of insertions in brackets [...], and have improved the formatting for one paragraph, which benefits from being converted to a bulleted list. Otherwise, this is the original post, unaltered.


Fr Seraphim Rose on Islam

(Originally posted September 2, 2012.)

Today (September 2, 2012) marks the thirtieth anniversary of the repose of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) of Platina. While many articles have been written to mark this significant anniversary (see here and here) it seemed appropriate for this blog to look at what Fr Seraphim had to say about Islam.

Actually, Father Seraphim wrote very little on the subject of Islam. His book, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, treats Islam along with Judaism in the chapter on The Monotheistic Religions. Fr. Seraphim is clear in his position that the "god" of Islam is not the True God, and in citing the essay by Fr. Basile Stakkas, implicitly refutes Islam's doctrine of tawhid (the oneness of Allah), in large measure by explicitly refuting its claim to be an Abrahamic faith. Abraham worshipped the One God in Trinity, as is clear from the Old Testament account (And the LORD appeared unto him at the Oaks of Mamre... Three men were standing by him, and he bowed himself toward the ground... Gen. 18:1-2), as is seen in the icon called The Hospitality of Abraham, the quintessential depiction of the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament.

In my correspondence with two of Fr Seraphim's spiritual children, we have wrestled with the question of "why" Fr Seraphim did not write more about Islam, and why he did not expend more energy and ink refuting Islam's theological jihad against Orthodox Christianity. After all, Fr Seraphim is certainly something of a prophetic figure in modern Orthodoxy; how could he not see the ascendency of Islam?

Simply put, perhaps that was not the message or vision granted to him. Fr Seraphim came of age in a vastly different time. Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Meditation techniques, the New Age movement, Eastern mystical traditions and other occult phenomena were very much in the air, and had been gathering momentum for quite some time, waging a serious assault against Christianity since the late 19th century. Those were some of the signs of his time of the Age of Apostasy into which we were then entering.

By contrast, the Muslim world was highly westernized in the 1950s through 1979 (the year of the Islamic revolution in Iran). The Ottoman Empire had been dismantled after World War I; Kemal Ataturk reestablished Turkey as a modern, secular republic, and abolished the Islamic caliphate in 1924, effectively neutering the pan-Muslim movement for nearly the next eighty years. Although the Muslim Brotherhood was born in the 1920s as a response to the apostasy of secularism, Western culture and mores were widespread throughout Egypt, Lebanon, and the Middle East in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood itself was outlawed. To take but one example, one cannot find a woman wearing a hijab in college class photos from Cairo in the 1950s and 1960s.

As a result, Islam was not especially on Fr Seraphim's radar screen. Or rather, it was eclipsed by the Eastern religious movements.

So then, what might Fr Seraphim have to say about Islam now, as we approach the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11/01 attacks?

American Pastor imprisoned in Turkey returns to America, predicts Open Persecution of Christians will happen in USA

"I was isolated for a few years, and coming back to the states was almost like coming back to a different country in many ways...

"We in the West have not experienced [persecution] very much... but I think we're going to. I think it's coming to this country."

- Pastor Andrew Brunson

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Pastor Brunson was imprisoned for his Christian Faith in rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has designs on restoring the former supposed glory of the Ottoman Caliphate. 

Having returned from his ordeal in an authoritarian Islamic state, Pastor Brunson sees America with fresh eyes and a clear mind. 

Let us heed his warnings and prepare ourselves for the trials ahead.

Pastor Andrew Brunson 'astounded at the speed with which the US is imploding' and predicts persecution

by Jon Brown, Washington Examiner, July 15, 2019 (h/t Russian Faith):


The evangelical Presbyterian pastor whose two-year imprisonment in Turkey sparked a geopolitical firestorm issued sobering words for Americans during a religious liberty conference last week.

Pastor Andrew Brunson lived as a missionary pastor in Turkey for decades until being detained in October 2016, following an alleged failed coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. His arrest sparked a diplomatic spat between Turkey and the U.S. in which President Trump involved himself personally.

During an interview at the Western Conservative Summit, held annually by the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University, Brunson claimed that the Judeo-Christian basis for American values is eroding.

"First of all, I think it's coming to the U.S., that there will be persecution," he said. "I was isolated for a few years, and coming back to the states was almost like coming back to a different country in many ways. And I'm really astounded at the speed with which, I think, the U.S. is imploding."